September 2, 2003

Workers rush to fill sandbags after levee fails

       Heavy rains Monday caused sporadic problems around Johnson County, including a levee break that briefly threatened a White River Township home.  A weekend storm deluged central Indiana with as much as 10 inches of rain and threatened Monday to break a 108-year-old record for rainfall in Indianapolis in a calendar day.  Don and Jeani Hall of the 900 block of Paddock Road awoke Monday to find water spilling over the Honey Creek levee and flooding their backyard. The rushing water broke a hole in the levee, causing a large tree to fall into the creek.  Johnson County Emergency Management Director Forrest “Tug” Sutton arranged a delivery of 15 tons of sand from the county highway department, and White River Township firefighters and county sheriff’s deputies filled sandbags to close the breach. Sutton planned to contact the county surveyor’s office and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources about options to repair the broken levee.  The water quickly receded Monday, but the Halls were concerned the overnight forecast might bring more trouble.  “Every time it rains, I just cringe,” Jeani said. “The water’s gotten higher than this before, but it’s never broken the levee.”  At the Stones Bay condominiums, west of State Road 135 and south of Stones Crossing Road, residents said flooded streets prevented them from driving Monday morning.  In the 500 block of Park Avenue in Greenwood, high water washed away fill from a utility construction project, police said. A nearby resident’s truck got stuck in the resulting hole, more than 3 feet deep, as he tried to back out of his driveway about 8 a.m.  On Indianapolis’ northeast side, residents of a mobile home park used small boats to reach their homes amid water 3 feet deep. High water also forced the evacuation of homes on Indianapolis’ northwest side.  The National Weather Service declared a severe thunderstorm warning until Monday evening for Johnson County and a flood watch overnight for most of the state. Showers and thunderstorms were expected to continue today and Wednesday, with heavy rainfall possible.  A front across the Ohio Valley combined with moisture from the Gulf of Mexico to bring heavy rain to central Indiana and lighter rain to other areas of the state, the National Weather Service said. The system dampened the holiday weekend across a wide area of the Midwest.  In Indianapolis, almost 6.5 inches had fallen by mid-afternoon Monday, leaving the possibility that a more than 100-year-old, single-day record for rainfall could be broken, said Albert Shipe, a hydrologist with the weather service. The record, set in September 1895, is 6.8 inches of rain in a calendar day.  Flooding was reported in areas of Marion County that had never flooded before, Shipe said.  The weather service reported rainfall totals Monday of 3.9 inches in Muncie and 2.4 inches in Terre Haute.  To the north, about an inch of rain was reported in Fort Wayne and a half-inch in South Bend. Rainfall totals were less than an inch in southern Indiana.  Flood warnings were issued for 23 Indiana counties, and several neighborhoods in Marion, Hamilton and Hendricks counties were cut off by rising floodwaters. A flood watch — indicating a lesser risk of flooding than a warning — was in effect for nearly all of Indiana except the northwest corner and southern areas along the Ohio River.  There were no immediate reports of injuries or the number of homes flooded.  In Carmel, several streets were closed due to flooding. Carmel street crews were filling sandbags, but they had not yet been distributed.  In Hendricks County, west of Indianapolis, a dispatcher said a county road near the small town of North Salem was washed out due to floodwaters.  The rain led the National Hot Rod Association to postpone the Mac Tools U.S. National drag races at Indianapolis Raceway Park for a week. The racing was postponed until Friday through Sunday.  In Indianapolis, the final day of the eighth annual Rib America Festival was canceled.  The rain also put a damper on other holiday weekend activities, from camping to Labor Day parades.  (reprinted with permission from the Daily Journal)

  

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